I’ve been fly fishing for a long time, perfecting the cast even longer and tying flies still longer. None of which amounts to much, if you can’t put it all together. Enter my homies Brian Schmidt and David Tyler Hess: They coached me to take all the components I’d practiced, and combine them to gently lay down my first solid presentation and take my first trout on dry fly. Thank you guys.

Since then we’ve spent a lot of time on the stream together. We’ve fished many places and discovered many things. Every time Dave would stated “you can’t do that.” Brian managed to do it! He’s always been an innovative fisherman, beyond ability, more like a fortunate experimental gene. Brian now works for Umpqua, the renowned feather merchants. Last night I found the negative of photo I thought lost for good: it’s the best tying photo I’ve ever captured.

Brain Schmidt: We headed out into western PA looking for Yellow Creek and listening to Widespread Panic's new album, 'till the medicine takes. We found refuge in a state park the first night and geared up to fish the morning hatch. I caught our prep work late that evening, by lantern and headlamp light, on film... It just so happens he's the only one of us who pursued his passion as a career. Cheers Bri!

Dave still fishes regularly, but is distracted with other fun pursuits such as fossiling, hunting, coming up with delicious recipes.

David Tyler Hess: aka “Dr. Lüp” or “Stream-side Vibe Technician” is a core compadré and fly fishing guru who has perfecting such techniques as “logging for catfish”, “the p-tail shizzle”, and “the turkey swaddle”. Shown here with a nice striped bass and a lighthouse. Bad ass.

I managed to master a few useful techniques and I greatly miss fishing with my buddies. But life moves forward, and from time to time we’ll get a chance to fish together. I miss our adventures.

Good weather and tight lines my friends

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on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Blog.
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